"You rock, rock"

Of course I prefer it when Gretchen is here, but I have to admit that there are at least a few benefits of having the place to myself. One of these is that I get to watch movies that she wouldn't necessarily want to watch with me. There are exceptions, of course, but as a general rule she doesn't like movies that are either violent or, for lack of a better term, "weird". Last night I watched one of them that fell into the weird category based on the strong recommendation of our friend Julie: "I ♥ Huckabees". I can see why this wasn't a big box-office smash: it's a comedy about hiring existential detectives to help find the meaning of one's life. It sort of reminded me of a lighter Charlie Kaufman film (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation), but even if it was often hard to follow the obtuse philosophical talk, it was still worth watching to see an excellent and funny ensemble cast (especially Mark Wahlberg, aka Marky Mark, aka Dirk Diggler from Boogie Nights as a disheveled firefighter having an existential crisis of his own). Plus, how many movies these days feature a Sudanese refugee, bad poetry (see the title of this post) written in honor of a rock saved from development, Shania Twain, fantasies about machetes, Dustin Hoffman with a bad hairpiece, and finding enlightenment through being hit in the face with a big ball? So I give I ♥ Huckabees" a qualified thumbs-up: it's good if you're in the right frame of mind and don't mind a little weirdness.